Karma

by RJ Blain

  When I started wheezing, Jake paled. “Karma?”

  How could I have gone from being able to run several miles to asthmatic in a matter of three weeks? “I think I need to stop for a minute.”

  The words came out a lot easier than I thought they would. Jake took hold of my left arm in his hand, his grip so tight I worried he’d leave a bruise. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my breathing until I was able to fill my lungs despite the tension in my chest and throat.

  “How long has that been going on?”

  “Hasn’t. Never.”

  “I’ll call Dr. Sampson.”

  I cracked open an eye in time to watch Jake pull out his phone. Any other time, I would have argued with him.

  “Dr. Sampson, It’s Jake. I took Karma to London. We were walking to the shops, and she started wheezing.” The worry in his voice upset me, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot. With his death grip on my left arm, I wasn’t going anywhere, and I wasn’t quite brave enough to use my right.

  Even with the painkillers, my hand still throbbed.

  “Karma, she wants to know if you’re feeling light-headed or dizzy.”

  I shook my head. “Just felt like I couldn’t get a good lungful of air. That’s it. I’m already feeling better. Stopping helped.”

  Jake relayed my words, and as he listened, his hold on me eased. “Not Demerol. She turns into a frenzied serial killer with a foul mouth. We were able to contain her the first and last time she was on it. We had to handcuff her. My desk was never quite the same afterwards. Don’t know of any other problem medications.”

  “I still think you made that up,” I muttered.

  “Okay, Dr. Sampson. Text me the number and the other details.” Jake hung up and sighed. “She’s going to talk to your surgeon and have a new painkiller prescribed. She’s going to try to get you straight morphine, apparently, since it only makes you talk a lot and become deathly calm in random intervals. Until then, we wait for this stuff to wear off, and I’m to keep an eye on you. If you start wheezing a lot, I’m to call an ambulance.”

  “Joy.”

  “Are you going to let me carry you?”

  “Fuck no. Just walk slow and let me take breaks, I guess. Medication’s fault?”

  “Medication’s fault.”

  “So it has nothing to do with my pepperoni pizza diet and the fact I ate like shit while globe trotting?”

  “I’m going to say no, but only because I have every intention of supervising what you eat until you are back to a hundred and ten where you belong—or a little heavier.”

  Some things weren’t worth arguing over. “Okay.”

  “You tell me at the first sign you have any trouble breathing. Understood?”

  “I got it, Jake. I like breathing as much as the next person. Remember, can’t swim worth a shit? I’ve almost drowned how many times?”

  “You’re the only person I know who can’t swim worth a shit that counts her doggy paddling laps in miles. And don’t remind me of your attempts to drown. We’re near a river. And the ocean. We’re on an island. Fuck.”

  “We could just go shopping. And no, I’m not going to let you carry me. Non-negotiable. And no more hospitals. I’m done with hospitals.”

  “Then you better not wheeze again, because if you do, we’re going. I will handcuff you and toss your skinny ass over my shoulder if I must.”

  “You have no idea how badly I want to pistol whip you in the ass right now, Jake.”

  “I’m a little disappointed neither one of us is armed.”

  “You are such an asshole.”

  Jake took me to a pub and fed me until I couldn’t tolerate even the thought of another bite. Somehow, I managed to keep all my food down. When he was convinced I wasn’t going to starve to death, Jake took me to King’s Road.

  In the first boutique, I discovered Jake’s dark and dirty secret: he liked his clothes expensive. In a way, I was relieved he had chosen a store for himself first. It gave me a chance to come to terms with him spending more on a single suit than I did on the rental car in Germany for my entire two-week drive on the Autobahn.

  He bought three suits, two of which needed to be tailored to fit him. The third, by some miracle, fit without requiring a single adjustment. While they were ringing up his order, which had more zeros than I could readily accept, Jake got on the phone to find us a hotel.

  The shop delivered, and by the time we checked in, his new suit would be waiting for him.

  “I can’t believe you spent that much on suits,” I muttered.

  “Wait until you see how much I intend to spend on your clothes.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Jake smiled, linked his arm with mine, and pulled me out of the shop. “My mother calls it a severe birth defect. Dad thinks it’s funny.”

  “They think what is funny?”

  “My enjoyment of helping women shop for clothes. The prettier the woman, the better it is. While Mom’s a pretty lady, she doesn’t hold a candle to you, and I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Don’t argue, Karma. Just let me buy you clothes and think about all the damage you’re doing to my wallet. View it as my punishment for my bad behavior.”

  “How is it punishment if you like it?”

  I had no idea what I was going to do with so much clothing; some things fit me, and some would fit me when I regained weight. Some had been purchased because Jake started gaping and lost the ability to speak, and I figured the outfits would come in useful sometime in the future.

  Jake insisted on going into a jewelry store on our way to our hotel. I would have been fine without adding the cost of rings to the substantial amount Jake had managed to spend in three hours, but he was a man on a mission, and he wasn’t going to leave King’s Road until I had rings on my finger.

  “You’re a fiend,” I complained as he dragged me into an upscale boutique featuring more diamonds than I could readily accept.

  Jewelry wasn’t my thing. My ears were pierced, but I only put in earrings for formal events, and I avoided those whenever possible. I sometimes wore a pair of studs so the holes wouldn’t close. One ring I had been willing to wear for him, but two was pushing it.

  At least he’d be wearing one, too.

  “You’re just awed I’m manly enough to own up to actually enjoying this.”

  “I’m awed, all right.”

  Jake glared at me.

  Inside the store, Jake went on a hunt for rings while I followed along, either shaking my head no, shrugging, or nodding when he pointed out rings he liked. A helpful representative measured our ring sizes, which helped us narrow the field to rings we could wear right away instead of needing them resized. His phone rang while we were making our first circuit of the store.

  “Uh oh. Mom and Dad noticed,” he announced before swiping his finger across the screen to answer. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Only an idiot would answer that call,” I told him, heading across the store to escape having to listen to the inevitable argument. I flagged down the sales rep, and she smiled at me.

  Two could play the shopping game, and within moments, the nice lady had my credit card in hand, ready to do excessive damage to my limit.

  If Jake was going to spend his time convincing his parents not to murder him for fleeing the castle, I’d just have to buy his wedding ring for him. I had noticed a set of bands I liked, a simple and elegant design with clean lines. My ring would be a little bit loose, but when I regained weight, I suspected it would fit. Unlike most wedding bands, which were a little too plain for my liking, both bands had tiny diamonds circling their centers.

  They sparkled, and if I was going to wear a ring for the rest of my life, I wanted a bit of shine. “These,” I whispered to the representative. “And an engagement ring that matches.”

  “I know just the ring in your size,” she whispered back, pulling out the bands I had chosen before sliding her way along the co
unter.

  The ring she selected startled me; instead of clear stones like the wedding bands, a yellow diamond was ringed by tiny brown stones matching Jake’s eyes.

  I was so, so weak when it came to that man’s eyes.

  “Yellow and brown diamonds. Bigger isn’t better, and with hands as small as yours, one of those big rings will get in the way. Small stones, but they’re unusual, right? With the way you’re buying your rings, you come across as an unusual couple.”

  I somehow managed not to burst out laughing. Unusual was one way to put it. “I’m afraid to look at the price tag.”

  “Not nearly as bad as you’d think; hard sell, yellow and brown stones. They’ve been waiting a long time for the lady to do them justice.”

  “That was smooth.”

  “Want to try it on?”

  I held out my left hand and wiggled my fingers, glancing at Jake, who was still on the phone, leaning against one of the counters. At the rate he was huffing, I expected him to explode at any second.

  The sales representative slid the ring onto my finger. True to her claim, it was the same size as the wedding band, just a little bit loose without running the risk of falling off my finger.

  I really was a sucker for the color of Jake’s eyes.

  “Put them on my card.”

  While the sales rep went to work finalizing my purchase, I stepped to Jake, listening to him huff and sigh.

  “Mom,” he complained.

  I had to stand on my toes to reach his phone, which I stole out of his hand. He gaped at me, and I stepped away, putting the cell to my ear.

  “Hi, Mrs. Thomas,” I chirped. “Bye, Mrs. Thomas!” I hung up before his mother had a chance to say a word. Moving back into arm’s reach of my partner, I slid his phone into his pocket. “When she calls you back, don’t answer.”

  “And you accused me of adding fuel to the fire.”

  “I bought you a ring.”

  “Wait, what?”

  The sales representative approached with a ring box and my credit card. While she held the box for me, I worked the lid off, grabbed his ring, and held it out to him. “Ring.”

  “You’re so sneaky.” Jake took the ring and worked it onto his finger. Taking the box, Jake pulled out my ring and slid it on my finger to join the engagement band. “There. Now everyone will know you’re all mine.”

  I lifted my left hand so I could admire the rings. “Just remember, Jake. By making me buy these rings, you’ve accepted full responsibility for your actions. You get to deal with my mother.”

  Jake laughed, wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and pulled me out of the store. “A small price to pay.”

  “Explain to me again how this happened?”

  “I dazzled you with my masculine charms, tricking you into proposing to me. You’re mine now. Didn’t I tell you when you first left to go to CARD? You’ll always be my partner.”

  His declaration flustered me, but at the same time, it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. “I don’t know how to respond to that, Jake.”

  “Just fall back on your usual. When in doubt, call me an asshole.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to call you an asshole.”

  “You’ll figure it out. Take your time and just enjoy the fact we’re off duty and can fraternize all we want without getting in any trouble.” Jake grinned at me, leaned down, and gave me a kiss.

  I blamed my medication for how much I enjoyed it, standing on my toes to get closer to him. At first, I was puzzled when he pulled away, but then he wrapped his arms around me and held me close.

  “People are staring at us,” I whispered.

  “Let them. I’m—” Jake stiffened, straightening as something caught his attention behind me. I spun around, my world narrowing to isolating the threat.

  The black SUV captured my attention. Instead of hitting me in the back, the round caught me in the shoulder. Pain tore through me, and before I could do more than draw a breath, numbness spread, cold and relentless.

  One, two, and three shots rang out, but it wasn’t my body that thumped to the ground. Jake’s arm spasmed around me and fell away.

  I sank to my knees, staring into a pair of cold eyes. Someone screamed, then their voice was lost to the silent dark.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A sharp slap to my face woke me, but it was the burning throb in my shoulder that jolted me to awareness. Cloth in my mouth choked off my scream and muffled the sound. Something was wrong with my nose, and I panicked at how difficult it was to breathe.

  A second slap snapped my head around, and agony pulsed through me.

  Somehow, I managed to blink open my eyes, but so many white bubbles danced and burst in my vision I was essentially blind.

  “Don’t kill the bitch yet,” a man snarled. I didn’t recognize his voice, and through the pain burning through my shoulder, I remembered.

  Four shots had been fired, and only one had hit me. Four shots had been fired, and my body hadn’t been the first to fall.

  A deep chill enveloped me until all that remained was the memory of Jake’s arm spasming around me. It had been the convulsive jerk of life leaving the body, something I had witnessed far too many times working in the FBI.

  A small part of me wanted to deny it, to harbor a tiny flame of hope my partner still lived. The rest of me, too experienced and hardened by reality, knew better.

  Jake was gone. One bullet was enough to kill someone; I’d taken a round in the shoulder, and I didn’t need anyone telling me I’d die sooner or later. With medical attention, there was a decent chance I’d recover, but nothing more than a chance.

  Life was a fragile thing, so easily broken.

  Someone grabbed hold of my chin, forcing my head to turn. The movement triggered nauseating, pulsing pain in my shoulder. The spots in my vision faded enough for me to recognize the dark eyes of the man in the SUV, the one who had shot me and taken Jake’s life.

  Confident in his victory, he wore nothing to obscure his features. Pockmarked scars scattered over his face accompanied longer gouges marring him from ear to chin. White male, mid-thirties, with brown eyes several shades lighter than Jake’s.

  No matter how brutal the crime, I had worked hard to find justice for victims and their families. When I stared into my killer’s eyes, one certainty rose above all others.

  Jake was gone, and the man who had killed us both would die with me. Instead of a fire burning bright, my rage was a cold, numbing ice, bringing out the calculating logic I used to hunt murderers, criminals, and rapists.

  The man before me was nothing but prey, and it was my turn to be the predator.

  “Don’t worry,” my killer said. I should have been afraid of the viciousness of his smile. “She’ll be singing like a canary before I’m finished with her.”

  “Get the answers first. Then play with her however you want. Don’t be long about it. We need to get out of here before we’re tracked down.”

  “You worry too much. They’re too busy dealing with the explosives, the dead agent, and the chaos we left behind to pick us out of the countless black SUVs in London. Even if they got pictures of our tags, they won’t find us. Not with six other cars exactly like ours.”

  The chill in my bones intensified as my fury grew to new heights. He was happy he had killed Jake.

  I would turn his joy to terror. I felt myself smile, and I bared my teeth. Before we had left Georgia, I had bitten Pops so hard I had drawn blood. I couldn’t remember what he had done to drive me to it, but I had never forgotten the taste on my tongue.

  That had been the day I had invaded a vixen’s den to escape Ma’s wrath, my face stinging from where she had slapped me. It hadn’t been until she had struck me that I had let Pops go.

  The vixen had bitten my shoulder in the same place I’d been shot, hard enough to draw blood. Tiny scars still marked where her fangs had sunk in. It had been a warning bite accompanied by her harrowing warning cry—a cry that still haunted my
dreams sometimes.

  “Just ask her the fucking questions before she bleeds out, and we went through all of this effort for nothing.”

  My killer’s grip on my chin tightened. “Who tipped you off, bitch?”

  “It’d help if you removed the gag first.”

  The fabric was yanked out of my mouth and left to dangle around my neck. I licked my lips and tasted sweat and blood.

  I remembered the taste of blood.

  I hadn’t remembered I liked its mix of sweet and metallic. The vixen’s harrowing call echoed in my head.

  “Who tipped you off, bitch?” my killer snapped, lifting his free hand to strike me. “How’d you and your fucking team know we were making the Baltimore hit?”

  I should have cared more the man in front of me had been part of Annabelle’s kidnapping. I opened my mouth, but instead of the words he wanted, the vixen’s cry burst from my throat. The warning call was followed by short, chittering cries. I recognized them as the sounds the vixen had made the instant before she sank her teeth into my shoulder.

  My gaze locked on the man’s exposed throat.

  He had taken Jake from me, and he would pay for his crimes with his blood.

  My first memories had been of dreams. I couldn’t pinpoint the moment my childhood obsession with foxes had begun, but I clearly remembered the day Ma had beaten it out of me.

  Before Ma had knocked the sin out of me, I had dreamed, and in those dreams, I had hunted, and I had cried for a companion who never answered my calls.

  It was that lonely scream that burst out of me, and I knew it would remain unanswered.

  Jake was gone and could no longer hear me.

  Human teeth couldn’t do what I needed, and my rage melded with my despair. I sank into my old dreams, the ones Ma had beaten out of me, and shifted from prey to predator.

  My name was Karma, and for every bit of bad in the world, there was a balancing of good, for every wrong dealt, there was right to be found. I would even the scales, taking all of the good I had done and exchanging it for the justice I’d take with me to the grave.